Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 7: The question of the futurewaste at source to recover the high value items before they are contaminated by themixing of waste and before the waste becomes a threat to health. In such initiatives,fees may be charged to households for waste collection or the reclaimers may pay forhigh value recyclables such as scrap metal.In poor suburbs and settlements in India and the Philippines, pickers have providedcollection and recycling services for their own neighbourhoods. They have built upunderstandings with both waste producers – shops, restaurants, tourist establishments– and middlemen who rely on them for a constant supply of recyclables [2004].In Cairo, the zabbaleens (garbage collectors) collect from wealthy suburbs. Theyrecycle 90% of the garbage, returning only 10% to the municipal dump. Their list ofrecyclables includes iron, nylon bags, copper, soft plastic, animal bones, aluminium,transparent plastics, cloth, broken and whole glass, paper, cardboard, tin and organics.The zabbaleen also make things to increase the value of recycled materials, for exampleworking rags into stuffing for cushions and mattresses and pelletising plastic forresale.In Curitiba, Brazil, the left-leaning municipality has supported the initiative oforganisations of the urban poor to collect at source. Platt argues that this has beencritical to the success of recycling in that city and enables the expertise and experienceof pickers to create the basis for city-wide waste management. “These decentralizedactivities may need only an institutional structure and land for activities such ascomposting to be scaleable to city levels. Indeed, community projects can becomemainstream solutions by being replicated in neighbourhood after neighbourhood”[2004: 30].In some cases, NGOs have driven the process of organising pickers. A compostingproject run by the Young Women’s Christian Association in Teoville in Paranaque City,the Philippines, kicked off with a six month period of engaging with householders tosegregate their waste. The result was an expanded awareness of environmental issues, aswell as projects for recycling paper, plastics and glass. The Exnora International 108 , withits headquarters in Chennai, India, has supported the growth of a social movementwith 300,000 members and over 1,700 Civic Exnoras, many of them with their ownZero Waste Centres.108 Standing for EXcellent, NOvel & RAdical.Wasting the Nation - groundWork - 187 -